BEDMINSTER, N. J.—The most important championship in women’s golf has become the domain of professional golfers hailing from South Korea. Sung Hyun Park’s v
BEDMINSTER, N. J.—The most important championship in women’s golf has become the domain of professional golfers hailing from South Korea. Sung Hyun Park’s victory at the 72nd U. S. Women’s Open at Trump National Golf Club was a testament not only to individual achievement, as her final round 67 demonstrated, but how, over the course of a decade, the fingerprints of South Korea are clearly becoming a steady pattern on major championship hardware.
Coming into the championship no less than nine South Korean women were ranked in the top 25 worldwide. More impressively, six of the top 11 hail from South Korea. The United States has with six in the top 25. In the last 10 U. S. Opens, the victor has been a South Korean seven times.
At this year’s event, South Korean golfers claimed the first three positions. For much of the final round it seemed very possible an amateur from that country—Hye-Jin Choi—might become just the second golfer to win the title matching what Catherine Lacoste did in 1967. Nonetheless, the 17-year-old claimed low amateur honors for the second consecutive year and set a new 72-hole amateur scoring record.
Only once since 2010 have there been multiple American winners of the women’s major championships in the same year. Lexi Thompson has been the main contender with a No. 3 world ranking, but her performance at the U. S. Open—tied for 27th—was simply lackluster. But, the rest of the American involvement is much further down the totem pole and has many wondering why this is happening given that the United States has the most players and courses of any nation.
At last year’s Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, where golf was reintroduced to the Games after a lengthy absence, Asian women claimed all three medals with South Korea’s Inbee Park taking gold.
